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Thread: CSPI's Happy Meal toys lawsuit

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    Default CSPI's Happy Meal toys lawsuit

    So the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a lobbying group that aims to encourage healthy eating -- and for laws to support it -- is suing McDonalds. As background information, the CSPI has lobbied for soda taxes, better disclosure of nutrition information (they were a big part of the push for mandatory trans fat labeling, and laws in some areas requiring restaurants to provide nutrition information, and other things like that.)

    Anyway this is kind of old news, since I think they launched the suit a month ago, but they're aiming to force McDonalds to stop giving away toys with Happy Meals. (Santa Clara county, California, has actually passed a law banning toy giveaways with fast food.)

    Now, y'all know I'm somewhat leery of government involvement in regulating the nutritional content of foods. But on the other hand, this doesn't get so much at nutritional content but rather at a form of advertisement aimed at children.

    And a lot of the McDonalds toys, despite being sort of stupid, are popular collectibles -- they had those mini Beanie-Babies when those were popular, and apparently a line of 101 different dogs as a 101 Dalmations tie-in. They're often tied in with popular kids' movies, and given how big an industry movie merchandising is, it seems fair to speculate that the toys are probably a fair driver for demand for their food.

    So what do you guys think about this? I hope they win the lawsuit, personally. It's fair to say that personal responsibility is important -- of course it is -- but looking at figures on overweight in the U.S., it appears we've created a food environment that even most adults aren't capable of resisting. And advertising to kids seems unfair -- how is a five-year-old supposed to understand and resist advertisements? In general I'd like to see a lot of restriction on advertising to children, actually. I think that if kids were a little less motivated to demand fast food, parents might find it easier to get them to eat healthier foods.

    I'm somewhat leery, like I mentioned, of the government attempting to interfere too much with nutrition. And that's in no small part because I think their past attempts to do so have sometimes been really counterproductive. But I think it's fair to target some of the more egregiously manipulative industry tactics that lead to consumption of shit food, especially when we're talking about something that targets kids too young to understand and resist their effects.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Oddly while I favor the sugar tax, I do not favor this lawsuit. Kids do not decide to go to McDs it is the parents. The toys are overall a good thing for young kids to keep them entertained for a bit. If I was in favor of this lawsuit at all it would be towards the waste stream portion of the toys. They are often crap suitable for the garbage with a lot of wasteful packaging. Not to mention the fact they are probably all shipped overseas causing further pollution.

    OK, so I guess that means I am of split mind on this but don't believe the overweight issue comes into play as much as they think it does.

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    Quote Originally posted by What Exit? View post
    Kids do not decide to go to McDs it is the parents.
    Do they? I mean, certainly it's up to the parents to make the decision, but do parents decide to take the kids to McDonalds because they want to, or because the kids are clamoring to go?

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Exy View post
    Do they? I mean, certainly it's up to the parents to make the decision, but do parents decide to take the kids to McDonalds because they want to, or because the kids are clamoring to go?
    I'm sure some parents give in to demands/pleading sometimes but overall no, it is not the kids but the parents. I also don't think the Happy Meal toys play a big part in it. The Teenie Beenies are the only promotion I recall having that effect and it was mostly on adults not kids.

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    A cheeseburger Happy Meal has 550 calories and 230 of those calories come from fat. 45.8% of its calories come from carbs and only 12.4% comes from protein.

    The average five year old is going to be around 40 inches tall and 40 pounds.

    A sedentary child at that age (and far too many of them are sedentary) and of those dimensions requires around 1200 calories a day.

    For most families, this shouldn't even be a "sometimes" food. We're looking at nearly half of kindergartner's daily caloric needs in a single meal, one which is primarily starch and fat. They're basically packaging the preschool version of heroin with a toy.

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